Baldwin County makes offers in veteran cemetery mineral rights cases

BAY MINETTE, Alabama -- Baldwin County commissioners voted today to offer some 60 individuals and corporations $2,000 per mineral acre for their interest in some 103 acres secured to be used as a state veterans cemetery.

Each case would be a separate filing, but all would be heard collectively, officials said. The holders of the rights have 7 days to accept the offer or condemnation proceedings will begin, according to the motion unanimously passed.

The action was taken to end a logjam in creating Alabama’s first state-run veterans cemetery. The process had been stalled over mineral rights for the site north of Spanish Fort, officials said.

"We’ve spent five years working on this,” Baldwin County Commissioner Frank Burt said last week, "and millions of taxpayers’ money to buy this land and now there are people who refuse to even sell their mineral rights to honor our veterans? I don’t understand it."

According to the law signed May 9 last year, the proposed cemetery would be located along Ala. 225 across from Historic Blakeley State Park. Under the agreement with state officials, Baldwin commissioners would sign more than 110 acres over to the state. Then, officials said, state agencies would apply for about $7.6 million in federal grants to build the cemetery that would serve about 71,000 veterans living in the area.

Veterans in the southern end of the state have a national cemetery in Biloxi and another in Pensacola should they choose to be buried there because the cemetery in Mobile is full.

The federal government has three national cemeteries in Alabama, one of which has been closed to interments. Eastern Shore dentist Dr. Barry L. Booth, himself a veteran and a veterans’ advocate, has worked to get the cemetery established.

Operating the cemetery will cost the state about $305,000 annually, officials estimate.

The problem is the state won’t take the land until local officials secure mineral rights on about 103 acres of the property. Dozens of people claim interest in the rights, and while some have voluntarily donated their claims to the project, many others have not.

Officials said negotiations have been ongoing for some time with many people. Burt said negotiations have been ongoing with an investment group in Texas. The minerals interest, tradable commodities in their own right, have been bundled, Burt said, and can’t be relinquished unless all investors in the group agree.

"We’ve been trying to make progress,” Burt said, “without much success. They couldn’t sell or wouldn’t sell. Hopefully, the lawyers have come up with a solution."

Baldwin County Commission chief counsel Scott Barnett said recently that the county still needs the mineral rights on about 103 acres.

"The negotiations surrounding the remaining conveyances have not progressed as fast as desired," Barnett said.